What is WHMCS? Features of WHMCS and How To Use It

In the fast-paced world of web hosting, managing clients, billing, and automation efficiently is crucial for success. Enter Web Host Manager Complete Solution (WHMCS), a comprehensive and powerful platform designed to simplify web hosting management for resellers. In this article, we will explore the key features, benefits, and how to use it to for your own hosting business. As a leading web hosting provider, InMotion Hosting is committed to delivering top-notch solutions, and WHMCS plays a vital role in our service offerings.

What is WHMCS?

Web Host Manager Complete Solution, commonly known as WHMCS, is an all-in-one client management, billing, and automation platform tailored specifically for web hosting businesses and resellers. It provides a centralized hub to streamline various aspects of hosting management, making it a go-to solution for web hosting providers, domain registrars, resellers, and managed service providers.

WHMCS is compatible with the major payment gateways such as PayPal, Google Checkout, and Authorize.Net, and includes many features such as the ability to use various currencies, create invoices, and create promotions.

If you are a reseller and are looking for a one-stop hosting solution for things such as handling Billing and Support ticket requests, WHMCS is an incredible solution. With InMotion Hosting Reseller Hosting plans, you get access to a WHMCS license for free, and guided installation through Softaculous.

WHMCS interface showing some of the features.
WHMCS interface showing some of the features.

Key Features of WHMCS

WHMCS encompasses a rich set of features designed to simplify and automate daily tasks. It offers seamless product and service provisioning, enabling effortless setup of hosting packages, domain registration, and management. With integrated server and account management, WHMCS provides a unified interface for handling customer accounts, allowing you to efficiently monitor and administer their hosting resources.

The Admin Area

WHMCS comes with a fully functional administrative area where you can manage multiple clients and services. You can add clients to this interface, manage hosting packages, and configure general settings.

Likewise, the administrative functions in WHMCS are automated. The administrator can control billing cycles, domain renewals, and customer invoices at regular intervals.

WHMCS also offers customizable templates and branding options, enabling you to present a professional and personalized experience to your clients. In addition, the reporting and analytics tools provide valuable insights into your business’s performance, helping you make informed decisions.

Example of the Admin area
Example of the Admin area

The Client Area

WHMCS provides your customers with a “client area,” where they can log in to manage products and services they have purchased from you. Your customers can also submit requests for technical support through this interface. The client area covers virtually any web hosting service you want to provide.

The platform’s automated billing and invoicing capabilities ensure accurate and timely payment processing, saving you time and effort. Integration with popular payment gateways allows for secure and convenient transactions.

Providing Customer Support

WHCMS comes with a support ticketing system, facilitating seamless communication with clients and enabling prompt issue resolution.

The support settings also control how you can write and publish SEO-friendly Knowledge Base articles. The documents you can publish here are relevant to your unique hosting enterprise and are separate from the official WHMCS product documentation.

WHMCS Implementation and Integration

Implementing WHMCS is a straightforward process, and InMotion Hosting provides comprehensive documentation and support to ensure a seamless setup. WHMCS is compatible with various hosting platforms, and it integrates seamlessly with cPanel. Additionally, WHMCS supports numerous third-party integrations and plugins, allowing you to extend its functionality as per your specific requirements. The platform also offers a well-documented API for custom development, enabling you to tailor WHMCS to your unique business needs.

Some businesses opt for custom-built management systems, but these often require significant development efforts and ongoing maintenance. Open source alternatives exist, but they may lack the professional support and continuous updates provided by a dedicated solution like WHMCS.

How to Use WHMCS

We will now show you how to accomplish the most common tasks in WHMCS.

How to Login to the Admin section of WHMCS

  1. Access the website you installed WHMCS on, and add a: /admin to the end. For example if you installed WHMCS on: example.com, you would navigate to: example.com/admin to access the admin login page.
    Logging into WHMCS
  2. Enter your username and password, then click the Login button.
  3. You will then be logged into the Admin area.

How to Add a Customer

  1. Login to the Admin area in WHMCS.
  2. In the navigation menu, roll your mouse over Clients, then click Add New Client..
  3. On the Add New Client menu, fill in the contact information for your client.
  4. If you want an email notification sent to the customer, click the check box next to Tick this box to send a New Account Information Message.
  5. Click the Add Client button to save what you entered. You will then see summary of the profile you created.
    Default view of client summary in WHMCS

How to Manage Domains

  1. Login to the Admin section of WHMCS.
  2. In the navigation menu, roll your mouse over Clients tab, then click View/Search Clients.
  3. Click the name of the client, who owns the domain you want to manage.
  4. Click the Domains tab.
  5. As per the official WHMCS documentation, “You’ll also see a row labelled Registrar Commands with options such as Renew, Modify WHOIS, Get EPP Code, etc…” Clicking those options allow you to make changes with their registrar.

Conclusion

Web Host Manager Complete Solution (WHMCS) is a game-changing platform that revolutionizes web hosting management. With its array of features, streamlined automation, and centralized client and account management, WHMCS enables hosting providers to enhance operational efficiency, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and fuel business growth. As a leading web hosting provider, InMotion Hosting understands the importance of efficient hosting management, and WHMCS plays a pivotal role in our commitment to delivering top-tier hosting solutions.

Take the leap and harness the power of WHMCS to simplify your hosting operations, streamline billing, and elevate your customer support. Experience the difference WHMCS can make for your reseller hosting business with InMotion Hosting today!

Carrie Smaha
Carrie Smaha Senior Manager Marketing Operations

Carrie enjoys working on demand generation and product marketing projects that tap into multi-touch campaign design, technical SEO, content marketing, software design, and business operations.

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33 thoughts on “What is WHMCS? Features of WHMCS and How To Use It

    1. The WHMCS provided with all of our reseller plans is unlimited. I’d advise contacting one of our sales representatives for more information.

  1. How to connect WHMCMS to WHM? I want when user register from my website it will automatically set up on WHM

  2. Which WHMCS package comes with your reseller accounts? I notice they range from 250 clients to unlimited.

    1. Our reseller package is the base level package, but our customers do have the option of upgrading their package with WHMCS.

  3. As a reseller, how do I sell a domains to my client. I have signed up on https://imhstore.com/. How do I integrate that into WHMCS? 

  4. I have installed WHMCS in its own directory (mydomain.com/whmcs) and now I want to move it to the root (mydomain.com). What do I need to do to achieve this?

    1. We do not currently have any documentation on how to do that. I did find a video on YouTube that you may be able to follow. It is quite old. however so I cannot say whether it will work for your specific version.

  5. Hi,

    For the domains registered directly with InMotionHosting through AMP ,, is it able to add a registrar for them to be managed with WHMCS ?

    Thanks

     

    1. Hello Rami,

      I’m not quite understanding what you mean. Any domain registered through us is with Melbourne IT as a registrar. Our reseller account holders are resellers for Enom. Those are the two registrars we deal with. What were you specifically trying to accomplish?

      Kindest Regards,
      Scott M

  6. I’m getting exactly same error

    I’ve only WHMCS and WordPress installed

    Please advice

    (what should be the IP Address ?)

    1. Hello Rami,

      Thank you for contacting us. Here is a link to a similar post in the official WHMCS Support forums. They discuss possible solutions to the issue, that may help troubleshoot.

      Thank you,
      John-Paul

  7. getting the same error as Miguel above:

    Fatal error: Call to a member function getUpgradeProductIds() on a non-object in /home/blackd34/public_html/admin/configproducts.php on line 0

    1. Hello Bahram,

      Please check to see if you have any of the ResellerClub Hosting modules installed, if so please disable them as there seems to be a problem between them and the core WHMCS installation that is producing this error.

      Best Regards,
      TJ Edens

  8. Hello TJ,
    I wish I would have posted here before contacting support! I worked with them for a few days on this and it was even escalated, with no resolution. I was basically told to contact WHMCS, which I could not since in order to contact support, you need to have purchased a license directly from them and my license was issued by InMotion. I wont go into much detail here, but you can look at my support tickets and see for yourself.

    I appreciate you looking into this so quickly and willingness to test this for yourself!

    Miguel

  9. What is this error Im getting while adding a New Server at WHMCS?

     

    https://i.imgur.com/2eVN1GN.jpg

     

    inmotion support and WHMCS support didnt help me properly, I am stuck with this problems more than 2 days.

    1. Hello Andre,

      Are you sure the username you are putting in has WHM reseller access? The error is stating that the user you are putting in does not have WHM access at all.

      Best Regards,
      TJ Edens

  10. I agree completely… This was one of the main reasons for selecting InMotion and I have been unable to use the software.

    InMotion Support was unable to resolve my issue and recommended I contact WHMCS directly. This is not possible, since I am a customer of InMotion and not WHMCS, so I cannot even create an account to request support. Either way, I do not have access to these server settings, so there is nothing I can do to resolve this myself. It would be pointless to contact WHMCS support.

    1. Hello Joseph,

      Can you provide the url to your WHMCS installation so we may take a look into it? I use WHMCS on our servers and I have never seen this error so I am intrigued and would like to try and solve the problem.

      Best Regards,
      TJ Edens

    2. Hello Miguel,

      I apologize for the responses you received. I installed WHMCS on your account in the test folder and it did load up for me with no errors and was wondering how I could replicate the PHP error.

      Best Regards,
      TJ Edens

  11. I also having this problem as well, I’ve been suspecting might be the MySQL Strict Mode Causing the issue, however InMotion Team insist not to disabled it for me, even when WHMCS requirement is to have it disabled.

     

    I found it quite ridiculous when offering WHMCS as a main features for reseller, but providing a non working one for us.

  12. Hello,

    I just installed WHMCS and when saving changes, I either get a blank page or a connection was reset message on the web-browser. I enabled reporting for the blank pages and this is what appears.

    Fatal error: Call to a member function getUpgradeProductIds() on a non-object in /home/mrandm8/public_html/admin/configproducts.php on line 0

    That particular error shows up when trying to add a product and clicking on continue (configproducts.php).

    I’ve been reading on WHMCS support and it appears that it may be due to an older version of IonCube being used on the web server.

    Please advise and thanks.

    Miguel

    1. Hello Miguel,

      You will want to contact our Live Support to evaluate your server’s setting and see if they can assist you with your specific account.

      Kindest Regards,
      Scott M

    1. Hello Saqib,

      Are you having issues logging into your WHMCS admin app on your android phone? We need a little bit more information about the current problem.

      Best Regards,
      TJ Edens

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